Wiederverwendung von digitalen Lernobjekten in einem auf Aggregation basierenden Autorenprozess
Key: Hoe06-1
Author: Stefan Hoermann
Date: February 2006
Kind: @phdthesis
Abstract: Web-based training is receiving increasing interest in the areas of university education and advanced vocational training. In comparison with books, web-based training offers the possibility of increasing the interactivity between learner and learning object by integrating multi-media elements. However, the production of high-quality web-based training courses, which use the potentials of multi-media elements is comparatively expensive. Common approaches promise an improvement of the cost-value ratio of web-based training by reusing already existing learning objects. Particularly the reuse of available learning objects as a whole is suggested. This reuse has not seemed to be profitable so far, because of the lacking adaptability of reused learning objects as well as the additional effort for indexing and supplying learning objects. Thus the reuse of learning objects is rarely practiced. Aim of this thesis is the conception and development of a system for reusing learning objects. It contains innovative approaches for solving general shortcomings in the area of reusing learning objects. As an approach, reusing learning objects in the authoring process is proposed. In comparison to most existing work this approach offers the possibility of customizing learning objects before reusing them. Furthermore, learning objects can partially be reused in the authoring process. In the course of this authoring process new learning objects can be arranged on the basis of reused parts of already existing learning objects. This authoring process is called "authoring by aggregation". In order to improve reusing learning objects, it is additionally recommended to integrate a repository for learning objects in the authoring process. One aspect of this thesis is being able to reuse and adapt existing learning objects - a second aspect is the necessity to ensure that newly created learning objects are made available for reuse. The development of an abstract model of an authoring process is of central interest in this thesis. This authoring process should allow the creation of learning objects based on authoring by aggregation. It serves as a basis for the development of more specific editor components for learning objects with different characteristics. The developed model contains the reuse of existing as well as the creation of new learning objects. Furthermore, the abstract model of the authoring process does not make any restrictions regarding the source from which reused learning objects originate from. The conceptual integration of this model is new. Basis for the authoring process is the availability of already existing learning objects. The availability of modularized learning objects is particularly required for partially reusing learning objects. For this reason an innovative, generic document model, which permits a modularized storage of learning objects has been developed in this thesis. Metadata play a major role in reusing learning objects, since they are often utilized for indexing and retrieving. Therefore, in this thesis a new method for semi-automatic metadata creation was developed. The proposed approach combines different, already existing methods for metadata creation. It was optimized to ensure the reliability of created metadata and to reduce the effort of metadata creation in the authoring process. In the context of this thesis an authoring environment was developed which additionally provides basic functions of a learning object repository. This authoring environment is used productively in an interdisciplinary e-learning project to create high-quality web-based training for graduate courses in human medicine at Hessian universities. Based on this the concepts which are both developed in this thesis and realized in the authoring environment could be evaluated successfully.
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